Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.18 “Aphrodite/Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde”

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Aphrodite comes to Fantasy Island, along with Marcia Brady!

Episode 3.18 “Aphrodite/Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde”

(Dir by Rod Holcomb, originally aired on February 2nd, 1980)

This week, Maureen McCormick returns to Fantasy Island!

The former Marcia Brady is playing Jennifer Griffin, the younger sister of renowned psychiatrist Melanie Griffin (Rosemary Forsyth). Jennifer is dating a total lout named Ross Hayden (Don Stroud) and Melanie’s fantasy is to understand why women like her sister are irresistibly drawn to bad boys.

(Because bad boys are sexy rebels who don’t let anyone tell them what to do and just need the right woman to bring out their sensitive side. It’s not that complicated!)

Roarke gives Melanie a vial of a blue serum that he claims is the same serum that Dr. Henry Jekyll used to transform himself into Edward Hyde. Roarke warns Melanie that she should only drink two drops of the serum at a time. Melanie does so and is transformed into the sexy Lilah, who dances up a storm at a nightclub and wins the attention of Ross, who is there with Jennifer. Somehow, Jennifer does not realize that Liliah is her old sister, despite the fact that Lilah is essentially just Melanie wearing a wig and a little more makeup than usual.

Ross, however, does figure out that Melanie is actually Lilah. Ross confronts Melanie in her cabin and forces her to drink the ENTIRE serum, as opposed to just the two drops. Melanie is transformed into an growling old woman with bad teeth. She ends up chasing Ross through the jungle, carrying a knife and growling at him until Mr. Roarke suddenly pops up and uses his magic powers to transforms Melanie back to her normal self. Roarke suggests that Melanie should think about why she has so much anger towards men and …. wait a minute. Does Roarke not realize that Ross basically just drugged Melanie and tried to force himself on her? Why is it suddenly on Melanie to figure out why she doesn’t like men like Ross?

Anyway, Jennifer dumps Ross and she and Melanie leave Fantasy Island together. We don’t see Ross leave Fantasy Island so I’m going to guess that he’s still somewhere in the jungle.

Speaking of the jungle, that’s where Professor Alan Blair (George Maharis) finds the lost temple of Aphrodite!

Alan’s fantasy is to find the perfect woman, who he believes to be Aphrodite despite the fact that anyone who is at all TV savvy knows that the perfect woman for Alan is actually his colleague, Minnie Hale (Belinda Montgomery). No sooner does Alan find the temple than a statue of Aphrodite comes to life. Alan and Aphrodite (played by Britt Ekland) make love all night and the next morning, Alan announces, “Aphrodite and I are getting married!”

However, it soon turns out that Aphrodite — much like that mermaid who tried to down John Saxon a few episodes ago — is all about destroying her lovers. Soon, Alan is flying into a rage whenever anyone so much as looks at Aphrodite and Aphrodite is trying to convince Alan to stay with her in her temple forever. Fortunately, Mr. Roarke shows up at the temple and announces that Aphrodite isn’t real because she’s just Alan fantasy. Mr. Roake isn’t even phased by the lightening bolt that Aphrodite tosses at him. Aphrodite is transformed back into a statue and Minnie reveals that her fantasy was that Alan would fall in love with her.

This was an extremely campy and silly episode, which also means that it was a lot of fun. Between Britt Ekland inviting every man to come to her cave and Rosemary Forsyth chasing Don Stroud with a knife, this episode was a nonstop parade of weirdness and it’s hard not to wish that it had served as a template for every episode of Fantasy Island. This week, the trip to the Island was definitely worth it!

Retro Television Reviews: T. and T. 1.3 “Settling the Score” and 1.4 “Stowaway”

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, T.S. Turner confronts the man who framed him!

Episode 1.3 “Settling the Score”

(Dir by Allan Goldstein, originally aired on January 25th, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us before the opening credits, “a young boxer is accused of throwing a fight. While Amy tries help him clear his name, I get a rematch with the man who sent me to prison.”

The episode opens with T.S. Turner in a very polite Canadian bar, watching a boxing match. He’s shocked when the favored boxer, “Dancin'” Joe (Louis Ferreira), starts to act groggy and is knocked out in the 2nd round. The next day, at the courthouse, people are talking about how Joe obviously took a dive. Amy, however, is busy keeping her latest clients out of jail.

“Hey, Amy,” T.S. asks, “what’s the score today?”

“Justice triumphed,” Amy says, “Suspended sentence.”

Woo hoo!

Amy then asks T.S. about Dancin’ Joe’s boxing lisence. T.S. reveals that the Commission suspended Dancin’ Joe and now they’re after his friend Decker because Dancin’ Joe trained at Decker’s gym.

“They’re after his lisence, too?” Amy asks.

“No one gets away clean,” T.S. growls.

T.S. thinks that Dancin’ Joe was forced to take a dive by Targon (Steven Makaj), the same gangster who earlier framed T.S. for the beating death of his manager. T.S. confronts Targon in his bar. (All gangsters have a bar.)

“A little far from home, aren’t you, Turner?” Targon says.

“Yeah,” T.S. replies, “and traveling don’t improve my temper …. I know you got to Dancin’ Joe. But this time, you’re going down! Last night’s fix makes it a whole new ball game.”

(Really, the main pleasure of T. and T. is listening to Mr. T speak.)

Back at the gym, a bruised Dancin’ Joe shows up to tell Decker and T.S. that he didn’t throw the fight. According to Dancin’ Joe, he suddenly started to feel woozy during the fight. Maybe Amy can help him get his license back!

This leads to a scene of T.S. Turner, shadowboxing while wearing a pink jumpsuit, and having flashbacks to the time that Targon demanded that he take a dive. “T.S. Turner ain’t going in the tank!” T.S. declared before knocking out his opponent. Targon framed T.S. for murdering his trainer. (Fortunately, Amy was there to somehow get a second trial and win T.S. an acquittal.)

Turner starts to investigate the Dancin’ Joe’s fight so Targon decides to stop T.S. by …. framing him for a crime he didn’t commit! (Hey, it worked before.) Targon’s goon beats up Dancin’ Joe’s cornerman and Targon’s bartender calls the police and claims that he witnessed T.S. doing it. Learning that there is a new warrant out for his arrest, T.S. hits the mean streets of Canada in an attempt to clear his name.

Luckily, the cornerman survived his beating and he informs T.S. that Targon put some sort of drug on Dancin’ Joe’s mouthpiece. T.S. gets the mouthpiece from Decker, holds it up to his nose, and announces, “What they used, it don’t smell.” Amy then shows up to tell T.S. that he needs to turn himself in and that the reports from the lab prove that Dancin’ Joe was drugged. T.S. flees from the gym so he can track down the bartender who claimed to see him beating up the cornerman.

Because there’s only five minutes left in the episode, Targon and his men suddenly show up at the gym and take Decker and Amy hostage. Fortunately, T.S. decides to come back to the gym and he rather easily beats up all of Targon’s men and Targon himself!

“Stop, T.S.,” Amy says, “Leave Targon for the law.”

“Look at me!” T.S. shouts at Targon, “I want you to see what’s coming!” T.S. then runs his finger across his throat, allowing Targon to know that he will be heading to one of Canada’s prisons. Fortunately, for Targon, Canada has no death penalty.

With Targon captured, Dancin’ Joe gets to fight again and T.S. makes peace with Detective Jones (Ken James), the man who arrested him years ago and who has always doubted his innocence.

“I’m never going to change,” the Detective says.

“Neither am I,” T.S. growls.

Woo hoo! You tell ’em, T.S!

Episode 1.4 “Stowaway”

(Dir by Allen Kroeker, originally aired on February 1st, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T says, “A runway kid has to grow up quickly when his friendship is tested and life depends on the outcome.”

“You know, when I was small,” T.S. says, “I used to think about running away also, but I didn’t realize my mother was doing the best she could with what she had.” T.S. delivers these lines from a hospital bed, which is where he spends most of this episode. While searching for a runaway named Fabian (Sean Roberge), T.S. got hit on the back of the head by a group of smugglers, temporarily taking him out of action.

Indeed, the majority of this episode is dominated not by T.S. Turner and Amy Taler but instead by Captain Grayson (played by the episode’s special guest star, Don Stroud). Captain Grayson is the captain of a boat that transports goods to South America. Fabian befriended Captain Grayson when he went to the docks to draw pictures. When Fabian runs away from home because he wants to go to sea with Captain Grayson, he discovers that Grayson is smuggling guns.

“People need those guns,” Grayson explains.

“Guns hurt people!” Fabian yells.

Anyway, Grayson is a good-hearted smuggler but his boss is not. Grayson is ordered to keep Fabian on the boat and to drop him off somewhere in South America. However, Grayson feels very guilty about this and Don Stroud, who is probably best-remembered for playing the convict who Clint Eastwood tracked to New York in Coogan’s Bluff, does a really good job of portraying Grayson’s inner conflict. Grayson finally decides to let Fabian go home. At the same time, T.S. Turner sneaks out of his hospital bed and rescues Fabian from the other smugglers, none of whom are as good-hearted as Grayson.

“If you really want to make your mother proud of you,” T.S. tells Fabian, “stay in school, get a good education, learn to become an architect, and never run away again.” T.S. also convinces Fabian to forgive Grayson for holding him prisoner. “Little brother, that man cares for you.”

These were two good episodes of T. and T. Yes, the plots were predictable but the appeal of this show is listening to Mr. T talk and sound like Mr. T. And Mr. T does a lot of talking in these two episodes.

Retro Television Reviews: The Elevator (dir by Jerry Jameson)

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1974’s The Elevator! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Marvin Ellis (Roddy McDowall) hates his job. He’s been assigned to be the manager of a new high-rise office building. Parts of the building are still under construction but that hasn’t stopped the company that owns it from selling out office space. When Mrs. Kenyon (Myrna Loy) comes by and asks to look at the top floor penthouse, Ellis agrees. In public, Ellis is always friendly and always courteous. It’s only under the most stressful of circumstances that Ellis reveals that he feels as if the building has been built of out lies and cheap material.

Ellis and Kenyon soon find themselves in a stressful situation when they are trapped in an elevator. Of course, they’re not alone in the elevator. There’s also Dr. Reynolds (Craig Stevens), his wife (Teresa Wright), and his mistress (Arlene Golonka). And then there’s Robert Peters (Barry Livingston), a teenager who has inherited a fortune. And finally, there’s Eddie Holcomb (James Farentino). Eddie has a suitcase full of money that he’s stolen from an office in the building. He’s also got a loaded gun. And, perhaps worst of all, he has an intense fear of tight places. The longer that he’s trapped in the elevator, the worse his claustrophobia becomes.

Because the building isn’t really finished yet, the elevator’s alarm button doesn’t really work. Other than the passengers trapped inside, the only people who know about the stalled elevator are Eddie’s partners-in-crime. Irene (Carol Lynley) is Eddie’s girlfriend and she just wants to get the situation resolved with as little violence as possible. Pete (Don Stroud) is Eddie’s sociopathic friend. Pete is not only determined to rescue Eddie and retrieve the suitcase. He’s also determined to take care of any potential witnesses by killing everyone on the elevator.

The Elevator is a disaster film, along the lines of Airport and The Towering Inferno. Due to the hubris of a faceless corporation, a group of people find themselves trapped in a potentially catastrophic situation. Some of them react with bravery. Some of them react with cowardice. All of them get a chance to reveal a bit of who they are on the inside. Some might say that being trapped in an elevator is not quite as bad being trapped in a fiery skyscraper or being a passenger on a airplane that’s being held hostage by a mad bomber. Technically, they’re right but I am also going to admit right now that I absolutely hate elevators and I try to avoid them whenever I can. I always say that this is because running up and down several flights of stairs is a good way to keep my legs looking good and certainly that’s part of it. But an even bigger reason is that I dread the thought of being stuck in a confined space with a bunch of strangers. If I was on an elevator that was stuck between floors, I would probably lose my mind. I have a hard enough time just standing in line for longer than 3 minutes. As directed by Jerry Jameson, The Elevator does as good job of capturing the feeling of being trapped in a small space. It’s not a film to watch if you have claustrophobia.

As for the cast, Myrna Loy is a delight as the eccentric Mrs. Kenyon. And seriously, how can you dislike any film that gives Roddy McDowall a monologue about how much he hates skyscrapers? It’s an entertaining, if undemanding, film. After watching The Elevator, I’ll keep taking the stairs.

Retro Television Reviews: Gidget’s Summer Reunion (dir by Bruce Bilson)

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in the 1970s, when the rest of the country was worrying about political corruption, inflation, and an out-of-touch president with an embarrassing family, Gidget, Jeff, and their friends were carefree California teenagers who spent all of their time either hanging out on the beach or running into the ocean with a surfboard. It was a time when they had not a care in the world and, obviously, it couldn’t last forever.

Nearly 10 years later, Gidget (Caryn Richman) and Jeff (Dean Butler) are now married and their surfboards have been safely stored away in the garage. Jeff works as an architect and it’s obvious that his new boss, Anne (Mary Frann), wants to make their professional relationship into something personal. Gidget, meanwhile, owns her own travel agency and, apparently, it’s a success even though Gidget rarely seems to spend much time at the office. Gidget is hyperactive and a bit self-absorbed and, as such, she usually only shows up at work long enough to tell her employees about her latest problems before then running out of the office in an impulsive attempt to fix everything.

What problems do Gidget and Jeff have? Well, for one thing, they live in a giant house despite the fact that they’re nearly broke. They’re both workaholics and, as a result, they don’t spend as much time together as they used to. They got married and then they became strangers. It’s been years since they last went down to the beach. When Gidget’s niece, Kim (Allison Barron), wants to learn how to surf, it doesn’t even occur to her to ask her aunt or her uncle. Instead, she ends up hanging out with a sleazy, beer-drinking surfer named Mickey (Vincent Van Patten).

Fear not! Gidget has a plan! Jeff’s birthday is coming up and Gidget decides that it would be a great idea to use her travel agent powers to get the entire gang back together again. She wants to bring all of the old surfers back to help celebrate Jeff’s big day. The only problem is that the old gang isn’t entirely easy to find. Plus, one of Gidget’s tour guides has to drop out of leading a tour in Hawaii. Gidget is forced to go in his place. Can she get back from Hawaii in time to save Jeff from Anne and Kim from Mickey? And even more importantly, will she ever be able to track down the old gang? Will the movie end with a bunch of balding guys surfing while the Beach Boys play on the soundtrack? Can you guess the answer?

The best thing that can be said about Gidget’s Summer Reunion is that the beach looked nice and the Hawaii scenes reminded me of the wonderful summer that my family and I spent in Hawaii. And the film is correct when it points out that adulthood is never as easy as we expected it to be when we were teenagers. However, the film suffers from the fact that a lot of Gidget’s problems could have been solved by Gidget actually taking a few minutes to think before acting. It’s one thing to be free-spirited and impulsive. It’s another thing to totally lack common sense. For instance, Gidget and Jeff’s old surfboards are stolen out of the back of Gidget’s convertible and, while you can certainly feel bad for Gidget’s loss, you do have to wonder what she was expecting when she basically just left them out in the open, where anyone could get their hands on them. Jeff isn’t off the hook either, as it was pretty much obvious to everyone but him that Anne was trying to get him to cheat on his wife. Gidget and Jeff are a cute couple but they don’t seem to have a brain cell between them.

Oh well. At least the beach looked nice!

Horror Film Review: The Amityville Horror (dir by Stuart Rosenberg)

Posted on October 8, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on a true story!

(Or maybe not. Actually, probably not…)

This 1979 film tells the story of George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder), a young married couple who move into a big house in Amityville, New York. George and Kathy are having financial trouble so it’s good thing that they were able to find such a nice house at such a low price. Of course, it’s possible that the house was cheap because it was built on a native burial ground. Plus, the previous owners were murdered by their son, who later claimed that he was possessed by evil spirits. The house has a less than savory history but then again, what house doesn’t?

Anyway, strange things start to happen as soon as the Lutzes move in. Noxious black liquid floods the plumbing. Crosses are turned upside down. Their priest (Rod Steiger) gets violently ill when he attempts to bless the house. George starts to act weird, getting angry at strange moments and walking around with an ax. Kathy’s daughter from a previous marriage says that she’s made a new imaginary friend named Jodie and, apparently, Jodie doesn’t like George or her babysitter. Flies swarm through the house and weird noises are heard in the middle of the night. Kathy has nightmares. George screams, “I’m coming apart!” Even the family dog seems to be worried about the house, especially after a secret room is discovered in the basement.

Could the house be possessed!? Is a terrible, other worldly evil trying to destroy the George and Kathy? Will the Lutzes be able to escape and hopefully make a lot of money by selling their story? Watch the film and find out. And, if for some reason, you can’t watch this film, you can watch one of the dozen or sequels or maybe even the remake…

The original Amityville Horror was based on a book that claimed to tell the true story of the Lutzes. For the record, it is generally agreed that Ronald DeFeo murdered his family in Amityville, New York and that George and Kathy Lutz later moved into the DeFeo house. It’s also known that the Lutzes left the house after 30 days. The Lutzes claimed that the house was possessed. Others said that the Lutzes left because they couldn’t afford the house payments. Regardless of why the Lutzes actually left, the book that claimed to tell their story was a best seller.

As for the film adaptation, The Amityville Horror is frequently described as being a classic of horror cinema. However, I have to admit that, whenever I’ve tried to watch it, I’ve always ended up giggling after the first ten minutes or so. Some of that is because the film is such a blatant rip-off of The Exorcist, right down to including a bratty child with a invisible friend and a troubled priest who struggles with his faith. Just as The Exorcist featured Linda Blair throwing up on Max von Sydow and Jason Miller, The Amityville Horror seems to take a good deal of unsavory delight in tormenting Rod Steiger. From the minute he first shows up, the house really has it out for him. He gets swarmed by flies. He gets physically ill. His car stops working on him. It’s like, seriously, just leave Rod Steiger alone!

(Interestingly, Don Stroud plays Steiger’s protegee and their relationship is largely reminiscent of the relationship between Father Merrin and Father Karras in The Exorcist. Later, a police detective shows up and acts exactly like Lee J. Cobb’s Detective Kinderman. Val Avery, who plays the detective, even bears a resemblance to Lee J. Cobb. Considering just how successful The Exorcist was, it’s not surprising that the Amityville Horror would be influenced by it but, again, it’s still hard not to be a little bit amazed at just how blatant a rip-off Amityville really is.)

When the film isn’t tormenting Steiger, it’s concentrating on George going crazy. Unfortunately, as played by James Brolin, George seems to be in a permanently cranky mood even before he and Kathy move into their new home. Once the Lutzes movie into the house you find yourself wondering if George is possessed or if he’s just a jerk? Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. One thing is for sure: shortly after moving into the house, George becomes absolutely obsessed with chopping firewood and polishing his ax. I know the sight of Brolin with that axe is supposed to be ominous and scary but I have to admit that I started to laugh every time he started chopping away. Far more convincing was Margot Kidder in the role of Kathy but the film really didn’t give her much to do other than scream and worry about why her husband was always in such a sour mod.

Anyway, the most interesting thing about The Amityville Horror is that this rather slow and derivative film was such a box office success that it’s been followed by 20 sequels and one remake! Someday, when I’m feeling really, really brave, I’ll get around to reviewing all of the Amityville films. Until then, I leave you with George Lutz and his beloved ax.

Murder Me, Murder You (1983, directed by Gary Nelson)

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

When two employees of an all-female courier service are murdered, Private Investigator Mike Hammer (Stacy Keach) is on the case. The service was owned by his ex-girlfriend, Chris (Michelle Phillips), and she wants him to protect her while she testifies in front of a grand jury. It turns out that her courier service has gotten involved in some shady business, transporting deliveries between a helicopter company and a South American dictator. Chris fears that she’ll be murdered to keep her from testifying. Hammer agrees to protect her and she tells him that he has a 19 year-old daughter who he’s never met.

While Chris is testifying, she suddenly dies on the stand. The doctors say that it was a heart attack but Hammer knows that it was murder. Hammer sets out to not only get revenge for Chris but also to find his daughter, who has disappeared into the world of underground pornography. It’s all connected though, as is traditional with Mike Hammer, it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with how.

Murder Me, Murder You was a pilot film for a brief-lived but fondly-remembered Mike Hammer TV series that aired in the 80s. Murder Me, Murder You takes Mickey Spillane’s famous detective into what was then the modern age but it allows him to remain a man of the hard-boiled noir era. Hammer’s narration is tougher than leather, he’s more interested in listening to swing music than new wave, and he still dresses like an old-fashioned private eye, complete with a fedora on his head. As played by Stacy Keach, he’s also just as dangerous and quick to kill as Hammer was in Spillane’s original novels. In the novels, Hammer was an unapologetic brute who often bragged about how much he enjoyed killing criminals and communist spies and whose closest associate was his gun, which he nicknamed Betsy. When Spillane’s novels were filmed, the violence of Hammer’s character was often downplayed. (A notable exception was Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, which suggested that Hammer was such a fascist that he would eventually be responsible for the end of the world. The Mike Hammer of Spillane’s novels would probably dismiss Kiss Me Deadly as being red propaganda and set out to deliver American justice to the Hollywood communists who wrote it.) In Murder Me, Murder You, Mike Hammer is just as brutal an avenger as Spillane originally imagined him to be. With his hulking frame, grim eyes, and his surly manner, Stacy Keach is the perfect Mike Hammer.

Murder Me, Murder You is a convoluted and often difficult-to-follow murder mystery but with Keach’s bravura lead performance, a strong supporting cast (including notable tough guys Tom Atkins and Jonathan Banks) and good direction from TV movie vet Gary Nelson, this movie comes about as close as any to capturing the feel of Mickey Spillane’s original novels. Murder Me, Murder You was released on DVD fourteen years ago. Though it is now out-of-print, copies are still available on Amazon.

Roger of the Skies: VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN (United Artists 1971)

Posted on August 21, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Producer/director Roger Corman finally cut ties with American-International Pictures after they butchered his apocalyptic satire GAS-S-S! Striking out on his own, Corman’s next movie was VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN, a World War I epic about famed German aerial ace The Red Baron and the Canadian pilot who shoots his down Roy Brown. There are grand themes, as Corman sought to make a statement on the futility of war, the end of chivalry, and the mechanized savagery of what was to be “the last war”. The film looks good, shot in Ireland, with exciting aerial footage, but despite all the outer trappings VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN is still a Corman drive-in movie.

John Philip Law also looks good as Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the aristocrat/warrior who became the feared Red Baron. Law was always great to watch, whether as the blind angel in BARBARELLA, the black-clad supervillain in DANGER: DIABOLIK, sexy Robin Stone in…

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A Movie A Day #224: Armed and Dangerous (1986, directed by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

John Candy and Eugene Levy make a great team in the underrated comedy, Armed and Dangerous.

John Candy plays Frank Dooley, a member of the LAPD. One of the first scenes of the movie is Frank climbing up a tree to save a little boy’s kitten and then getting stuck in the tree himself. When Frank discovers two corrupt detectives stealing televisions, Frank is framed for the theft and kicked off the force.

Eugene Levy plays Norman Kane, a lawyer whose latest client is a Charles Manson-style cult leader who has a swastika carved into his head. After being repeatedly threatened with murder, Norman asks for a sidebar and requests that the judge sentence his client to life in prison. The judge agrees on the condition that Norman, whom he describes as being “the worst attorney to ever appear before me,” find a new line of work.

Frank and Norman end up taking a one day training course to act as security guards and are assigned to work together by their tough by sympathetic supervisor (Meg Ryan!). Assigned to guard a pharmaceutical warehouse, Frank and Norman stumble across a robbery. The robbery leads them to corruption inside their own union and, before you can say 80s cop movie, Frank and Norman are ignoring the orders of their supervisors and investigating a crime that nobody wants solved.

Armed and Dangerous was one of the many comedy/cop hybrid films of the 1980s. Like Beverly Hills Cop, it features Jonathan Banks as a bad guy. Like the recruits in Police Academy, all of Frank and Norman’s fellow security guards are societal misfits who are distinguished by one or two eccentricities. There is nothing ground-breaking about Armed and Dangerous but Mark Lester did a good job directing the movie and the team of Candy and Levy (who has previously worked together on SCTV) made me laugh more than a few times.

Armed and Dangerous was originally written to be a vehicle for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It’s easy to imagine Belushi and Aykroyd in the lead roles but I think the movie actually works better with Candy and Levy, whose comedic style was similar to but far less aggressive than that of Belushi and Aykroyd. One of the reasons that Armed and Dangerous works is because John Candy and Eugene Levy seem like the two last people to ever find themselves in a shootout or a car chase. With Belushi and Aykroyd, it would have been expected. After all, everyone’s seen The Blues Brothers.

A Movie A Day #123: Dillinger and Capone (1995, directed by Jon Purdy)

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

1934. Chicago. The FBI guns down a man outside of a movie theater and announces that they have finally killed John Dillinger. What the FBI doesn’t realize it that they didn’t get Dillinger. Instead they killed Dillinger’s look-alike brother. The real John Dillinger (played by Martin Sheen) has escaped. Over the next five years, under an assumed name, Dillinger goes straight, gets married, starts a farm, and lives an upstanding life. Only a few people know his secret and, unfortunately, one of them is Al Capone (F. Murray Abraham). Only recently released from prison and being driven mad by syphilis, Capone demands that Dillinger come out of retirement and pull one last job. Capone has millions of dollars stashed away in a hotel vault and he wants Dillinger to steal it for him. Just to make sure that Dillinger comes through for him, Capone is holding Dillinger’s family hostage.

This film, which was produced by Roger Corman, combines two popular but probably untrue rumors, that Dillinger faked his own death and that Al Capone had millions of dollars stashed somewhere in Chicago. Though the two never met in real life (and moved in very different criminal circles), the idea of bringing Dillinger and Capone together sounds like a good one. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Sheen and Murray are both miscast in the lead roles, with Sheen especially being too old to be believable as the 40 something Dillinger, and the script never takes advantage of their notoriety. In this movie, Dillinger could just as easily be any retired bank robber while Capone could just as easily be any unstable mob boss. In classic Corman fashion, more thought was given to the title than to the story.

One things that does work about the movie is the supporting cast, which is full of familiar faces. Clint Howard, Don Stroud, Bert Remsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Catherine Hicks, Maria Ford, and Martin Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez, are all present and accounted for. Especially be sure to keep an eye out for Jeffrey Combs, playing an FBI agent who suspects that Dillinger may still be alive. He may not get to do much but he’s still Jeffrey Combs.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #24: Bloody Mama (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 24th film on my DVR was the 1970 Roger Corman-directed gangster film, Bloody Mama. I recorded it off of TCM on May 27th.

Bloody Mama opens with a cheerful song that goes, “Maaaaaama…Bloody maaaaama….” and it’s such an unapolegetically over the top song that it perfectly sets the tone for what’s to follow. Bloody Mama is violent, occasionally perverse, and totally unashamed. It doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t. It’s bloody and it’s about a mother and, in the best Corman tradition, it makes no apologies!

The film tells the heavily fictionalized story of the Barkers, a group of brothers who robbed banks and killed people in the 1920s and 30s. The majority of them were killed in a gunfight with the FBI. Also killed in the gunfight was their mother, Kate Barker. Always aware of the danger of bad publicity, the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, announced that Ma Barker was actually the mastermind of the Barker gang and that she was even more dangerous than her sons. Ever since, historians have debated whether Ma Barker was the criminal mastermind described by Hoover or if she was just the innocent woman described by … well, by everyone who actually knew her.

Bloody Mama, of course, leaves no doubt. From the minute that we discover that Shelley Winters will be playing Ma Barker, we know that she’s the most dangerous woman alive. As played by Winters, Ma Barker is a ruthless bank robber, one who has no fear of gunning down innocent bystanders and who never lets her love for her sons get in the way of ordering them to kill a witness. As opposed to a lot of gangster films made in the late 60s and early 70s, the film never attempts to portray its title character as being a heroic or particularly sympathetic character. Instead, what makes the character compelling is just how thoroughly Winters commits to the role. It doesn’t matter what Ma Barker is doing or saying, Shelley Winters totally sells it. When the gang is cornered by the police and one associate makes the mistake of yelling that he’s not a Barker, Ma reacts by gunning him down herself and you can’t help but appreciate the lengths that Ma will go to defend her family’s name.

As for her sons, they are an interesting group of perverts and drug addicts and they’re played some of the best character actors of the 1970s.

Herman Barker (Don Stroud) is a sadist but he’s also one of Ma’s favorites. He travels with a prostitute (played by Diane Varsi), who quickly tires of the Barkers’s violent way of life.

Arthur Barker (Clint Kimbrough) is the most practical of the Barkers and therefore, he’s also the least interesting.

Fred Barker (Robert Walden) is bisexual, which is a fact that the film handles with all the sensitivity that we’ve come to expect from a film made in 1970 (which is to say, not much at all). Fortunately, Fred’s lover is Kevin and Kevin is played by Bruce Dern and Bruce Dern is always a lot of fun to watch, especially when he’s appearing in a Corman film.

And then there’s Lloyd who sniffs glue and shoots heroin and who is played by an obscure young actor named Robert De Niro and … wait, Robert De Niro! That’s right! One of the pleasures of Bloody Mama is getting to see De Niro at the start of his career. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really get to do much, though he does occasionally flash the same unhinged smile that would later show up in Taxi Driver.

Roger Corman has repeatedly cited Bloody Mama as being one of his favorites of the many movies that he directed over the course of his long career. I don’t blame him. It’s a thoroughly shameless and totally entertaining film!

Keep an eye out for Bloody Mama!